Letter to America by Cody Walker

Sitting on a Sofa in a 1925 Bungalow
in Ann Arbor, Michigan

On my screen, I see the bronze butterfly,
Awake at the jutting podium,
Blowharding like a thief in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty promises,
The lobbyists follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my alt-right,
In a swamp of reproach between two bushes,
The droppings of last year’s candidates
Blaze up into golden parachutes.
I lean forward, as the video buffers and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats by, looking for a cabinet post.
I have wasted my life.

Cody Walker is the author of The Trumpiad (Waywiser, 2017), where this poem is published and from which all proceeds are donated to the ACLU. He is also the author of The Self-Styled No-Child (Waywiser, 2016) and Shuffle and Breakdown (Waywiser, 2008). His poems have appeared in The New York Times and TheBest American Poetry (2015 and 2007); his essays have appeared online in The New Yorker and the Kenyon Review.